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Lorelei scooted her chair closer. Ellie glanced up at Kate’s exasperated sigh. She didn’t buy that for a moment. Kate’s eyes were filled with just as much laughter as Lettie’s. Ellie picked up the pencil and got back to work. Kate covered her grin by taking another sip of water. “Ellie does seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to detecting romance.”
Ellie glanced at Lettie. The woman was responsible for Ellie’s “sixth sense” and didn’t even know it. Lettie told her at a young age that it didn’t always matter so much what a person said as what a person didn’t say. For that reason, Ellie had spent her life picking up on the little clues no one else noticed. Like the way Maddie’s tone of voice changed when she asked for Jeff Bridger’s order, and the way his nervous fingers straightened his collar while he gave it.
She added Maddie’s initials to Jeff’s name before handing it to Lorelei. “Now, tell me who is left without initials by his name. I’m going to ask you to mark off the men I could not possibly see myself with. Hopefully, we’ll find a winner.”
“Christian Johansen.”
Ellie shook her head. The young man had been her good friend for years, but she couldn’t imagine him as anything more.
“Rhett Granger.” Lorelei glanced up. “He’s handsome.”
“I thought I marked him off. He’s taken.”
Lorelei leaned toward her. “Taken by whom?”
“Never mind that.” She leaned back to give the women a knowing glance. “Just mark my words.”
“Donovan Turner.”
Ellie froze. Her gaze shot to Lorelei’s mirth-filled eyes and she frowned. “Lorelei O’Brien, that man was not allowed on my list. He gives me the willies. Who’s left?”
Lorelei exchanged a glance with Kate. “No one.”
“What? How is that possible?”
Kate leaned over to look at the list. “Everyone else has initials. Some have question marks by them, though. What do those mean?”
Ellie frowned. “It means I’m sure of what the man thinks, or the woman, but not both. I suppose those are still possibilities—until I find out for sure if they’re really taken. But there’s really no one else without initials?”
Kate shook her head. “You paired off every decent man on the list.”
Ellie sat in stunned silence. “I’m going to be a spinster.”
“Don’t say that.” Lorelei sounded horrified.
She buried her face in her hands. “Why not? It’s true.”
“What’s true, Ellie?” Maddie sidled up to the table with their plates.
Ellie spread her fingers to peer up at Maddie. “I’m going to die a decrepit old maid.”
Maddie laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
Ellie straightened abruptly and nearly managed to bump her head on the plate Maddie was setting in front of her. She met the woman’s dark brown eyes adamantly. “It isn’t silly. It isn’t silly at all. I went through every bachelor in town and I’m pretty sure that none of them work.”
“You did what?” The woman backed away as if afraid to find out the answer.
“I think you should try again,” Lettie said as Kate handed her the list. “Something as serious as this should not be taken lightly or composed hastily. Give yourself time to think about it.”
“Ms. Lettie is right,” Kate said, though Ellie had a feeling her sister was just trying to make her feel better about not finding a match. “Maybe you made a mistake.”
“You left someone off.”
Ellie frowned at Lettie. “I did? I thought I listed every decent, God-fearing man in town.”
“That’s why.” The woman nodded as if the mysteries of the world had been explained to her, while eyeing her thoughtfully. “I don’t know why I never thought of it before.”
“Thought of what?” Lorelei asked as everyone seemed to lean forward in anticipation.
Lettie exchanged a meaningful look with Kate. At first, Kate’s brow furrowed, then slowly the illuminating light of intuition seemed to fill her eyes. “You mean...?”
Lettie nodded.
Kate’s eyes widened, then she stared at Ellie before sitting back in her chair. “Hmm.”
Ellie exchanged a confused glance with Lorelei. “Who is it?”
A slow smile lifted Kate’s lips. “This could be good. This could be very good.”
* * *
It was always good to get letters from home. Lawson glanced at Nathan Rutledge’s letter then turned to the one from the woman he called Mother. Reaching his room in the boarding house, he tugged off his dirty boots, threw his Stetson on his desk and fell back onto his bed, allowing himself to give in to exhaustion for just a moment before opening his mail.
It had been a long, hard year filled with dangerous work and too many secrets. As a Texas Ranger, he’d rounded up more than his fair share of outlaws, and he tried to find some satisfaction in that. But this near-vagabond existence was too much like the life he’d left behind when he’d stumbled into Peppin, Texas, abandoned and alone with nowhere to go until the O’Brien family took him in. A few months later, when he was fourteen, Doc and Lettie Williams adopted him. They’d been the parents he’d always dreamed of. His life in Peppin had been so good that he’d nearly forgotten about the past. Here...he seemed to run across it every day in the smell of liquor, the haunted eyes of the saloon girls, the solitude and the need to be on constant alert.
His commanding officer in the Rangers constantly told him not to lose the chip on his shoulder. “That’s what makes you stand out from the other Rangers. That’s what makes you tough. That’s what enables you to get your man. Never lose that chip.”
Lawson wasn’t stupid enough to believe him. God was the one enabling him to catch those criminals. As for the chip on his shoulder—well, he reckoned he’d picked it up sometime between being abandoned and wandering into Peppin. Unfortunately, it didn’t keep the harshness of this life from wearing away at him, day by day.
Time for a distraction. He tore open the letter from his parents first. It was a thick one so it ought to be good. He lifted the letter above his head just high enough for it to catch the sunlight shining through the window behind him. The room was so silent that he decided to read it out loud: “‘Dear Lawson, You really should come home.’”
He sat up in concern and pulled the letter closer. “‘Now, don’t get all excited. Everyone here is fine. Your pa and I just miss you like crazy. We haven’t seen you in more than a year. You haven’t come home for any of the holidays. I know you work hard and what you do is important. This isn’t to make you feel guilty. This is just to tell you that we love you and we want to see you. Surely you can apply for a leave of absence. Just a few weeks of your company—that’s all I ask. Now, I’ve said my piece so I won’t mention it again.’”
She kept her promise and went on to talk about some of the things Lawson had mentioned in his last letter, but he kept going back to that first paragraph. She was right. He hadn’t been home since he’d left a few weeks after his almost wedding to Lorelei.
Pretty Lorelei Wilkins had been his sweetheart for years. Asking her to marry him had seemed like the next logical step. He had cared for her, had been determined to be a good husband to her—but before that could happen, she’d run out on their wedding, leaving him literally at the altar. When he’d chased after her, she’d told him the truth: that she didn’t think she loved him in the right way to be his wife...and that she didn’t think he loved her the right way, either.
She was right. He’d been so hungry to have a family of his own, to make a life for himself that was completely different from the childhood he left behind, that he’d rushed into a wedding that came more from his head than his heart. He’d realized that she deserved more and maybe he did, too, so he did the honorable thing. He let her go. Then he did what his pride demanded, and left. He wasn’t there to see her marry Sean O’Brien, Lawson’s best friend and the man Lorelei had always secretly loved, though he was happy for her—happy for both of them—that they’d found the love they deserved.
He knew that calling off the wedding had been the right decision, but it had still hurt. The wedding was supposed to prove that he’d overcome his past, that he was starting a new life and a new family. Instead, it seemed to prove the opposite and reminded him of all the rejection he’d experienced before. In truth, it was no wonder she’d walked away so easily. The people who mattered most often did.
He read the letter from Sean’s brother-in-law, Nathan Rutledge, then let it fall to his chest as he stared at the ceiling. There must be some conspiracy to make him come home. Nathan wrote that his horse ranch had been doing so well that he’d decided to expand. He was offering Lawson the job of foreman just in case he’d grown tired of being a Ranger.
“Lord, is this from You?”
It was possible that God was bringing his time as a Ranger to a close. If so, Lawson planned to listen. God had been getting Lawson out of danger since he’d been a scraggly ten-year-old fending for himself on the streets, even if he hadn’t known Whom to thank for it right away. God had helped him find a fresh start once. Maybe it was time for another new beginning.
Lawson Williams still had something to prove—that he was nothing like the parents who’d given him life then done their best to ruin it. He’d keep proving it to himself over and over again until he could finally believe it. He’d thought being a lawman would provide the opportunity to do that but perhaps the best way to prove it was by going home.
* * *
Ellie was trying her best to ignore the young man who’d been trailing after her for the past ten minutes. It wasn’t working. She turned and planted her hands on her hips as she eyed the dashing young blacksmith. “Rhett, if you insist on following me then you might as well make yourself useful.”
She pointed to the signs for the booths resting on the church stairs. The Founder’s Day activities had already started but the signs needed extra time to dry. Rhett really must have been desperate because he picked them up and began helping her hand them out to the booth workers. “Ellie, I’m sure I’m on your list. You’ve got to tell me. Jeff Bridger says you told him about Maddie and they are already engaged.”
She smiled as she handed Mrs. Redding the sign for her lemonade stand then moved on. “I know they’re engaged. I invited you to the party I’m having for them at the ranch. Don’t tell me you forgot about it already.”
“I didn’t forget and you aren’t going to distract me.” His muscles bulged as he shifted the remaining signs to his shoulder, which somehow made his pleading look seem all the more pitiful. “I’ve just got to know who you think my match is.”
She rolled her eyes. It had been two weeks since the fateful day she’d created the “Bachelor List.” The whole thing had turned into a disaster. Everyone in town knew about it. She’d had plenty of available men seeking her out after word got around. Unfortunately, they weren’t looking for her. They’d just wanted to know whose initials were next to their names on the list.
She could understand them wanting an answer. She’d wanted one, too, but Lettie and Kate never told her who the mystery suitor for her was. Try as she might to extricate the information from them, she’d gained little more for her efforts than a headache.
She sighed. “Well, Rhett, who do you want it to be?”
She followed his gaze as it trailed to where Amy Bradley stood with her sisters. He watched Amy for a full minute before Ellie shook her head and smiled. “Yep, that’s what I thought.”
His gaze jumped back to hers, and then he grinned. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
He nodded then set off toward Amy. She grabbed his massive arm and dug her heels into the ground to stop him. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re going to help me deliver all these signs because you’re so grateful. Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.” He patted her hand in brotherly affection and began trailing her again but remained decidedly distracted. He seemed to grow less confident as they continued and when she finally set him free, he went in the opposite direction from where his thoughts had been taking him.
Now, what’s wrong with him? She pulled the new list from her pocket and crossed out the question mark beside Amy’s initials by his name. He was the only one besides Deputy Jeff Bridger who she’d officially paired a girl with so far. There were plenty of others still with question marks—for now.
She felt someone’s eyes on her and turned to find Donovan Turner watching her from near the gazebo. She tucked the list out of sight before barely managing to hide her grimace behind a polite smile and a nod. The man pulled the piece of hay from his mouth and tossed it to the ground before pacing toward her. Now, there was one man who made no effort to hide his opinion of her, which was definitely not brotherly. He always seemed to pop up at the most inopportune times—like when she was alone. If he caught her, he’d spend the next thirty minutes bending her ear about that pig farm of his. If he caught her; but she wasn’t going to let him.
She slipped into a group of people, dashed behind a booth and surfaced behind a tree. She thought she’d lost him, but to make sure, she scanned the crowd as she continued walking backward. She spotted the man scratching his head, glancing about. She was about to turn around when she backed right into someone. She gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
She tried to step away from the man but strong arms slipped around her waist and pulled her against a solid chest. She froze, then caught her breath as a warm, masculine voice filled her ear. “Hey there, beautiful.”
Her eyes narrowed. Slowly, she glanced over her shoulder to look at him. The way his lips curved made her cheeks warm but she forgot all about that when her gaze tangled with those unforgettable hazel eyes. Her breath caught in her throat then her lips blossomed into a smile. “Lawson Williams, as I live and breathe!”
He loosened his arms enough for her to turn around and throw herself back into them. He hugged her back just as tightly as she hugged him. She pushed away to look at his face. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
He grinned that slow, steady grin of his that set every female heart in a fifty-mile radius beating wildly. He stepped back to survey her. “Look who’s talking. You sure have changed in the last few months.”
She laughed. “Last few months? Are you crazy? It’s been a year and no less! Of course I’ve changed. Did you get my letters?”
“I did.”
“You only wrote back twice.”
“I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “I was on assignment most of the time so it wasn’t easy to keep up with mail.”
She lifted her chin. “Well, how is a person to know whether you fell off your saddle and broke your head or got laid up sick for a week if you don’t write?”
He dipped his head to send her a suspicious look. “Were you worrying about me, Ellie?”
“Not me. Just...certain other people.”
“I see.” His eyes continued to tease her.
She pushed away from his arms, only belatedly remembering the reason she’d run into him in the first place. She glanced over her shoulder to look for Donovan Turner. He’d stopped to speak to someone and they pointed in the direction she’d dashed. She winced. It would only be a matter of time before he found her. Lawson’s voice drew her attention.
“I just got into town. I came here first since I figured everyone would be at the celebration. I wanted to surprise my parents, but I wasn’t counting on not being able to find them in this crowd.” He scanned the flurry of activity around the churchyard. “Have you seen them recently?”
“No.” She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Donovan had gotten closer but still hadn’t spotted her. She tugged Lawson’s arm in the opposite direction. “Let’s try this way and hurry up. I’m on the run.”
“From the law?”
“No, silly, a man.”
His gaze sharply honed in on hers. “What did you do—hit him with a mud pie?”
“No. I’m twenty-one, not twelve.”
He snorted. She jostled him lightly with her shoulder and he jostled her right back then caught her around the waist to keep her from stumbling. She rolled her eyes. Well, that was mature. Sometimes with Lawson, she couldn’t help reverting back to the mischievous ten-year-old she’d been when he’d come into her life.
Lawson glanced around at the crowded churchyard. “This event has gotten larger since I left.”
“More people have started coming from outside of Peppin to celebrate with us. Not much else has changed.” Satisfied they’d completely lost Donovan, she turned her attention to finding Lawson’s parents—or her family since they were probably close together. “Oh, actually, Sean started a new tradition last year when he got up on the podium and proposed to Lorelei in front of everyone. We’ve all been wondering who’ll continue it.”
“Naturally, it should be you.”
She stopped to stare at him. “Me?”
“Well, sure.” He tipped his hat up to stare right back at her. “You should try to keep it in the family. Besides, you have men chasing you all the time. That isn’t good. You need to pick one and settle down.”
“I do not have men chasing me. There is one man and I don’t want him. Everyone else thinks I’m their little sister.”
His hazel eyes sparkled with laughter as he stepped a bit closer and lowered his voice. “I bet all those men are just waiting for you to pick one of them so they can declare their feelings.”
She tilted her head. “Don’t you have that backward?”
“They just need a little encouragement.” At her scoff, he narrowed his eyes. “Oh, come on. Show me a little of that charm.”
“No.”
“I know you have it in you.”
“I do not.”
“Sure, you do.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He gave her an encouraging little nod then took a step back as though giving her room to work. Her hand went to her hip. A quick glance around told her no one was watching. She stepped close to him and placed a hand on his chest before throwing her head back to stare at him. She batted her eyelashes as fast as she could. “Lawson, honey, it’s been you all this time. Tell me how you really feel.”
